Weeks after UN experts issued a similar warning, now a US official accused IDF of sexually abusing Palestinian women

Weeks after United Nations experts have called for an investigation into what they described as “credible allegations of egregious human rights violations” against Palestinian women and girls in Gaza and the West Bank by Israeli forces, “US official accused Israel's IDF of sexually abusing Palestinian women.”

The UN allegations included extrajudicial killing, arbitrary detention, degrading treatment, rape and sexual violence, according to a statement by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights released on Monday. It did not detail how they did their fact-finding, but they referred to photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances reportedly taken by Israeli troops and uploaded online.

Now, an official with US State Department accused Israel of "systematically" sexually abusing Palestinian woman, according to Israeli media reports. 

 More recently, women in al-Shifa hospital have also reported abuse at the hands of the IDF.

The testimonies that come out daily about the atrocities committed by the IDF against those trapped in Al-Shifa Hospital exceed the limits of what is expected. 

Mrs. Umm Imad, after she was able to leave one of the buildings that had been completely emptied of its residents, as she recounted the horrors of what she experienced during four days of siege, makes you feel that members of a gang of vampires, not humans, are the ones carrying out the current massacre.

She said: 

“They dug a deep basement in the ground opposite the building, they flooded it with sewage water, then they ordered us to leave with only our clothes and our personal identification. They forced us to cross through the sewage water that drowned us up to our chests, while they laughed with each other.” 

The woman, who is over fifty years old, continued: 

“In every building they stormed, they released dogs to devour the bodies of the sick and everyone they met. In the hospital courtyard, they fed the bodies of the martyrs they had executed to their dogs.” 

In the testimonies of female survivors, there is a lot of talk about IDF soldiers harassing women. According to a recorded testimony provided by survivor Jamila al-Hassi, IDF soldiers raped dozens of women and carried out executions by running over them with bulldozers. 

As of Sunday evening (3/24/2024), the IDF had announced that it had killed 140 people in al-Shifa Hospital, and arrested about 800 others. However, the testimonies of survivors confirm that hundreds of people died under the rubble of their homes that the IDF leveled to the ground in the vicinity of the hospital. 

Another witness, Nada Salem, said that “the bodies of the martyrs are scattered in every street. She said to al-Akhbar newspaper reporter: 

“I left the eastern gate of the hospital and saw more than 30 martyrs on a road that did not exceed 40 meters in length. I walked on Al-Wahda Street and saw dozens of martyrs who died as a result of bombing, sniping, or burning. There are charred bodies everywhere.” 

Ms. Salem added: “We heard the screams of families whose homes the army stormed in the vicinity of Al-Shifa. It has become understandable what is happening: the army brings in its dogs, they devour the flesh of everyone they meet, they execute the men, burn them, or arrest them, then they ask the women to move to the south of the Gaza Strip from Al-Rashid Street, and on the way, those who are killed are killed and those who survive are saved.”

On the southern end of Al-Rashid Street, social networking sites were buzzing yesterday with scenes of children being forced by the IDF to take off their clothes, as they walked several kilometers on foot, while Quadcopter planes pursued them. This scene is only part of the routine that has become usual, as stripping naked and dragging on rubble and sand have become the behavior that accompanies every arrest or displacement.